‘Vande Mataram deserves same place as national anthem’ – JP Nadda

BJP chief and MP JP Nadda, during debate on Vande Mataram, said in Parliament, “During the Lucknow Session on August 15, 1937, Mohammad Ali Jinnah passed a fatwa against Vande Mataram. Instead of contesting it, Jawaharlal Nehru initiated an investigation into Vande Mataram. On October 20, Nehru wrote a letter to Subhash Chandra Bose and confessed that the background of Vande Mataram in the novel ‘Anand Math’ might irritate Muslims.”

JP Nadda said in Rajya Sabha, “I want to read another statement which says: The sense of indifference and neglect shown towards Vande Mataram in the Constituent Assembly was entirely the responsibility of Shri Jawaharlal Nehru. He himself made this clear in a written reply that was given in the Assembly.”

“A member wrote a letter to India’s Home Minister Sardar Patel seeking to know from what was happening regarding India’s national anthem. The reply to the letter addressed to Sardar Patel was written by Nehru on 25 August 1948. In that reply, Nehru stated that he himself was responding because he was taking all decisions on this matter. Through this reply, the people of the country came to know for the first time that the Government of India’s Cabinet, led by Nehru, had already decided—outside the Constituent Assembly and on a temporary basis—to adopt Jana Gana Mana as India’s national anthem,” he added.

“I want to say that we should give ‘Vande Mataram’ the same place we give to the national anthem and the national flag and it should be added in the Constitution,” said JP Nadda.